Monday, April 24, 2006

An almost comical number of daffodils

It's like I've never seen spring before. And honestly, maybe I haven't. The spring that visits tropical locales is equal in intensity to the winters and autumns that visit. It's only summer - that sweating beast who doesn't know when it's time to go home already - only summer that we meet full-on.
From my windows that face the highway, I look directly onto a lane that intersects with our street a dozen or so yards south of our driveway. That lane meanders around the hills and vales, crosses the creek that gives our hamlet its name, meanders some more, crosses the creek again, and finally intersects with our street a second time about a mile south of our house. Walking that great loop gives one the benefit of three miles of postcard-worthy hillside vistas. And somehow, almost all of it is uphill, no matter which way one walks around it.
And it's only a slight detour to the corner general store, where there is organic coffee and chocolate chip muffins the size of my head.
Yum.
JC and I have been trying to make that walk a part of our daily routine, seeing as how we've been able to squeeze in plenty of time daily for chocolate Easter candy, a glass or two of wine, a little more candy, a stop at one of the many local NY pizzerias, and just a handful or two more of candy before bedtime. Did I mention the ice cream? Because there is ice cream.
At any rate, we've been taking those walks, and being astonished at the beauty around every corner.
I did not anticipate the changing colors that would occur in springtime. I thought that what was grey and brown would just turn green and that flowers would erupt in the garden and it would be spring. But that is not how it happens.
The hills wake up in a slow, subtle mirror-image of fall. The maple trees are topped with a haze of red buds. The forsythia shocks the landscape with sprays of electric yellow. And the green is like nothing else, the way it muscles through the winter mulch.
This is not a sweet springtime that dances into view when winter has taken its leave. This is a full-on, balls-to-the-wall, resurrection-style springtime that kicks winter's bony ass and sends it running north.